I might as well get my Sunday night cartoon reviews out of the way. Honestly, while I'm always glad to see new episodes, last night's showings weren't that great. The idea behind the Simpsons episode, that Abe's ramblings worked as newspaper columns, wasn't a bad one, but it seems like the writers really didn't know what to do with it. Turning it into a murder plot with ridiculously over-the-top action scenes is pretty much a cliché on the show by this point. Family Guy appeared to want things both ways, making a joke about how they were doing an amnesia story, yet playing that story pretty straight. Really, I didn't see any particular innovations that they took with the idea, and even the cutaway gags were fairly weak. Okay, the Robin Williams bit was funny, but that's about it. American Dad was passable, and doing something else with the brain-switching technology that we know the CIA has within the context of the show was a good idea, but I'm not sure about Stan molesting the horse. At this point, such things are no longer shocking enough to be funny out of sheer wrongness (especially on Seth MacFarlane shows), yet that was pretty much the extent of the joke. Eh, whatever.

I'm sure you know by now that I have an interest in monsters. It isn't even so much that I like to be scared as that I just like weird-looking creatures. And I know I'm not the only one, due to the fact that the Krampus seems to be gaining popularity in the online world. So what's a Krampus? Most of you probably already know, but he's basically the Anti-Santa. In Alpine lands, when St. Nicholas makes his rounds distributing presents to the good kids, the bad ones are beaten with a switch by this demonic dude. In fact, it's said that he takes REALLY bad ones to Hell in a handbasket, and I mean that literally. Krampusfest is celebrated on the night of 5 December, right before St. Nicholas' Day, and it involves people dressing up like the holiday devil. Images of the Krampus vary, but he pretty much always has horns and what might be considered a typical demonic face.

( Please, Krampus, don't hurt 'em. )

I don't have too much to say about the cartoons tonight. The Simpsons episode was pretty low-key, but it had its moments, and I think it did a decent job of explaining Bart's reasons for wanting a brother. The Cleveland Show and Family Guy had a few funny moments, including the Jeremy Irons and House bits in the latter, but were rather weak overall. I obviously don't expect these shows to be totally realistic, but the way Peter took over the company was pretty unconvincing even for a Family Guy plot. American Dad, on the other hand, was a fantasy episode, but it still worked. I did wonder how they were going to end it, but I think they did a pretty good job with that, without having to resort to it all being Stan's dream. Klaus WILL still be alive in the next episode, though, right?

And then there's this:

The Simpsons episode started out all right, but kind of fizzled out over time. I do give it credit for actually tying the two subplots together, however, and for coming up with an explanation that made a certain amount of sense. There have, after all, been past episodes where Lisa's supposedly rational explanations weren't really any more sensible than what the townspeople believed. Homer drinking moonshine with the hillbillies was pretty amusing, and I think the Wiccans were portrayed pretty accurately, but the plot kind of crept along without really building up much steam.

The Family Guy episode wasn't all that funny, but I did like that they did another show about Brian's relation to other dogs. It seems like Brian is sometimes an intelligent dog trying to fit in with human society, and sometimes just a person who's shaped like a dog and acts like one when they can get a cheap gag out of it. Since the show has been focusing more on the latter characterization recently, it's nice to see that the writers aren't totally abandoning the former one.

Is there anything else I have to report? Not really. I have several calls I have to make tomorrow, and I hate making calls, but I'm sure that's not of much interest to anyone reading this. I'll have an Oz post up tomorrow, unless something happens to detain me.

Okay, so, cartoons. I actually found the Simpsons episode to be pretty good, even though the ending was a bit abrupt. That's pretty much par for the course these days, though, isn't it? I do wish they'd done more to work the subplot in with the main plot, but they were both pretty funny. And is this the first time we've seen Gerald (the unibrowed baby)'s mother? I think there was some speculation that his father might have been Leopold, Superintendent Chalmers' assistant who was introduced around the same time and quickly forgotten about. The Family Guy episode wasn't that great, but the jokes based around Jerome being the stereotypical cool black guy were amusing, and I liked Quagmire's rant to Brian near the end. It does seem like they've made Brian more of a jerk in recent years than he was in the show's early days. Mind you, I've also seen it suggested that Brian has become a self-insertion character for Seth MacFarlane himself, so maybe there's a bit of self-mockery (or perhaps mockery of Seth by the others writers) in there. I did watch the Cleveland Show and American Dad as well, but I can't think of anything particularly constructive to say about them. I do wonder why they chose to use My Morning Jacket as the band that Stan became obsessed with, but for all I know they went through several others before finding a group that would agree to be on the show. I can't say I know much about the band; it seems like they were a hot item a few years ago, but they've since largely gone off the radar. But then, I don't exactly keep up with the latest in music news, so maybe that's just my impression.

Also, happy twenty-fifth birthday to Scarlett Johansson. Because she totally reads this, right? {g} Seriously, though, she's someone on whom I actually agree with the makers of the Hottest Celebrity lists. She seems to have particular appeal to nerdy guys; I remember one magazine calling her a "brainy bombshell," and Darius Whiteplume had a post on her possible nerdiness. Not sure how accurate that is, but even though the opinions I've heard on her album of Tom Waits covers weren't particularly positive (I've never heard it myself), it kind of strikes me that you'd have to be at least somewhat geeky to even know who Tom Waits is.

( And I guess I should augment this with some pictures. )

Today was the birthday of my wife bethje, and therealtavie came to visit. We met her in Philadelphia, and went to eat at the Palace Diner in Berlin. (That's Berlin, New Jersey, with the dubious claim to fame of being the hometown of Kelly Ripa.) After dinner, we stopped by the Berlin Farmers' Market, which Tavie seemed to enjoy. Unfortunately, most of the stores were closing up, but we DID get to see some of the crappy bootleg T-shirts, like gangsta Spongebob and Tom and Jerry lighting cigars with dollar bills. I often have to wonder if the makers of such items even know who the characters they shamelessly rip off are. I wonder the same thing about the decals of Calvin peeing on things. Anyway, happy birthday to Beth, and thanks to Tavie for coming to see us! It's rare we actually get to hang out with anyone.

In my dream last night, I was in a city inhabited mostly by rabbits who hated humans. Actually, I don't think I ever SAW any of these bunnies, so maybe it was just an elaborate hoax, but the people only felt safe riding on a bus. I was there for some class or something, and they issued us weird guns during the time we were attending. I think there might have also been a section of town populated by dogs.

The Sunday night cartoon lineup was really kind of weak tonight. Both the Simpsons and Family Guy episodes gave me a real sense of nothing happening. I liked the idea of Carl becoming Homer's boss, but the plot was neither particularly funny nor dramatic. I assume the calendar subplot for Marge was intended to tie in with her recent Playboy appearance, but while some of the jokes about the calendar were pretty good, that plot was pretty much totally dropped when Homer's busy work schedule became the focus. And the bit with Marge and Ned Flanders was just tacked on. I didn't watch most of the Cleveland Show episode, but Family Guy was pretty lackluster. I know they tend to reset everything at the end, but it seems like there wasn't even any real conflict along the way in this one. Quagmire has a baby he can't take care of...so he puts her up for adoption. Stewie makes clones that don't turn out that well...and then they die. Granted, plot has never been FG's strong point, but unfortunately the jokes weren't very good either. American Dad was also not one of the better episodes, but at least Roger was amusing. But then, I've seen some reviewers mention that they don't like episodes heavy on Roger's invented personae, so maybe they wouldn't care for this one at all.

Well, let's see. No new Simpsons tonight, but the American Dad episode was all right. Not one of the best, but it worked pretty well. The first Family Guy was kind of weak, and if the woman Brian was dating was supposed to be fifty, I don't think they got their math right. Alaska and Hawaii both became states in 1959, so she would have had to have been REALLY young when the picture with less stars was taken. Then again, maybe they did that just to mess with us nerds. {g} The other new FG, with the evil monkey and Miley Cyrus, was a better one, although it kind of ran out of steam. The ending was coherent, but not all that funny. Well, maybe I just thought the King Kong reversal had been done better in Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures. I don't know. I just think it kind of ran out of steam after introducing the gag about Miley being a robot. It was pretty cool to finally see an actual story involving the evil monkey after all the years of his being in the background, though. I actually thought the partially live-action variety-type show with Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein was a good idea, but not really implemented that well. Some of the simple gags ran way too long, but I guess that's not atypical for MacFarlane. As for The Cleveland Show, it continues to be hit-or-miss, with more misses than hits. I liked Cleveland's rap and the satire on the hypocrisy of purity pledges, but most of it was just kind of...there.

Well, at least they showed the Simpsons Halloween episode before Halloween this year. And the first segment, at least, was a pretty decent comic horror story. It did end rather abruptly, though. I kind of think they should have cut some time from the second part, which was easily the weakest. How many times are we going to see the show parody survival horror? We've already had zombies, mutants, and cowboy zombies in previous Halloween shows, and there really wasn't much new in this one. Yeah, I get that they're trying to take on modern zombie movies this time, but there are only so many jokes we can get out of the people of Springfield turning into zombies or zombie-like creatures. The final segment gets some credit for originality, especially with the low-budget play background. I've never seen Sweeney Todd, though, so I don't know if I missed any specific parodies of that.

Speaking of The Simpsons, how did Disney get to use Mr. Burns to promote their new Jim Carrey movie? Sure, there wasn't any new animation, but Harry Shearer DID provide a voice-over. I'm guessing it had to do with large amounts of money changing hands. But really, I'm no Carrey fan anyway, but even if I were, why do we need the eighty billionth remake of A Christmas Carol? Contrary to what Bill O'Reilly says, it isn't the secular-progressives who are making war on Christmas. It's the makers of Jim Carrey films.

As for the other shows, the Cleveland Show was slightly better than the previous episodes, Family Guy was a rerun, and American Dad was all right. I think they didn't really use the Roger's mind plot gimmick to its full advantage, but I did find his memories amusing. And really, that's about it.

So, the highlight of today was seeing Video Games Live, a touring show that consisted of an orchestra and a choir performing video game music, while footage from the games was displayed on a screen. Game franchises covered included Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man, Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Castlevania, Metal Gear, Halo, World of Warcraft, and Kingdom Hearts. I knew some of them more than others, but the whole thing was fun. The Video Game Pianist, whose music I downloaded a few years ago, played a few numbers, and even wore a blindfold while performing the Mario theme. Audience participation consisted of a girl playing Guitar Hero and a boy playing Space Invaders with orchestral accompaniment, the latter of which really didn't work all that well, since it was his first time playing and that's not exactly an easy game. Oh, well.

In other viewing news, bethje and I finally watched the Sunday evening cartoon episodes from last week, as well as the most recent ones. Last week's Simpsons was actually pretty good, if for no other reason than its being the first to focus on Mrs. Krabappel since she broke up with Principal Skinner. I think the parody of The Secret is a little dated by now, but it was still funny, and forgivable in light of the time it takes to produce a new episode. Also amusing was the substitute teacher, although the way they got rid of him at the end was totally abrupt. He just all of a sudden decided to get drunk and endanger his job for no reason? Couldn't they have come up with a way to restore the status quo that didn't just come out of nowhere? I didn't care as much for tonight's episode. There were some amusing moments, especially in the training scenes, but it felt rather rehashed overall. And, once again, did they just not bother to write an ending that actually resolved anything coherently?

As for the other shows, well, last week's Family Guy was all right, although it really didn't seem to cover much that hadn't already been done in "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein." So why was it okay to show the new episode, and not "Weinstein"? Well, aside from the fact that they're now letting Seth MacFarlane do pretty much whatever he wants. "Three shows in one night? Well, hey, you're the one with the lucrative DVDs!" I really think he's spreading himself too thin. The second and third Cleveland Show episodes weren't any better than the first, and while last week's FG and American Dad were pretty good, this week's were lacking. Some Fox promo said that the Cleveland Show was the best-rated new program, but I have to wonder how much of that is due simply to people who watch both The Simpsons and Family Guy not bothering to change the channel in between them.

Is it season premiere time again already? Yes, it is! And the Simpsons episode really wasn't too bad, even if its major themes had essentially already been covered. I liked the beginning, with the emphasis on Comic Book Guy, and the movie part had its amusing moments as well. A few jokes fell kind of flat, like the montage bit (it was kind of funny, but didn't really fit the tone of the show), and others had been done better in earlier episodes (they'll never top the bad editing joke from "Radioactive Man"). I did appreciate that they referenced superheroes from actual comics instead of ones they made up for the show. Hey, maybe the reason the movie went so far over budget was that they had to pay to use the likenesses of both DC and Marvel characters. {g} The ending was weak, but, well, you can make that criticism about pretty much every Simpsons episode from the past several years.

The Cleveland Show was all I expected, but that's because I didn't expect it to be very good. It kind of seemed like Seth MacFarlane was parodying the whole idea of spin-offs, but isn't that an idea with limited potential? When American Dad came out, the main criticism seemed to be that it was a weaker rip-off of Family Guy, and I think that applies even more to the first episode of this show. Not only is there another talking animal, but also another baby who says inappropriate things, another group of three friends for Cleveland to hang around with, and more cutaway gags (which American Dad usually avoids). Maybe it will eventually develop its own identity, but this episode just struck me as a weak FG episode. And you could say much the same thing about the actual FG episode, which had some interesting animation and alternate-universe gags, but too little plot to hold an entire episode together. And while the designs were mostly good, the parodies were rather tepid. They got the LOOK of the Flintstones right, and didn't do such a bad job with the Disney universe, but come on. Hey, the Flintstones say "rock" a lot! Walt Disney was anti-Semitic! Wow, THERE are some things I never really thought about until they were made the subject of satire! :P And I know the Robot Chicken bit was a friendly jibe at Seth Green (who, of course, works on both shows), but "Those shows existed!" is also a pretty valid criticism for some FG gags. As seems to be the usual way for Sunday nights now, American Dad was the best of the night, even if Klaus was underused. The Vietnam War reenactment worked well.

Okay, it took us a while, but bethje and I have finished checking out the Simpsons Season 11 box set, and watching all of the episodes with commentary. I'm sure I'm not alone in my opinion that this was a weak season overall, despite some high points. But while the season was kind of lousy, the set was put together as well as ever, and they had deleted scenes from pretty much every episode. In his commentary on these scenes, Mike Scully admitted that there were some they should have left in, like the happier ending for "Beyond Blunderdome" and the scene of the alligator's funeral in "Kill the Alligator and Run." As it was, the gator coming out of the courthouse at the end doesn't make much sense without seeing that it had been lying in state earlier on. Of course, that episode doesn't make a whole lot of sense in general, but that scene would have made the ending seem a little less random.

The commentaries were pretty thorough, but I did miss some of the commentators from earlier seasons who didn't contribute much to this one. It was kind of a special treat when Matt Groening or Al Jean would actually show up for a commentary. And are Beth and I the only ones who find Ian Maxtone-Graham's laugh annoying? The staff did mention when episodes were unpopular or controversial among fans. The excuse they used for the jockey elves in "Saddlesore Galactica" was basically that other shows also had wacky ideas like that, which I'm not sure really holds up. I was kind of surprised that Groening didn't mind the trolls, even though he'd complained about unrealistic moments in other episodes. Oh, well. It was a bad episode, but it was an isolated bad episode that didn't disregard character continuity like "The Principal and the Pauper" or "Viva Ned Flanders." It's not like the jockeys became recurring characters on the show.

It is weird that these episodes are almost ten years old now and the show is still on the air, when back then I was kind of surprised that they were even going to make an eleventh season. I have to wonder what would have happened if they had ended the show back around the tenth season or so. Would it be even more famous for having gone out in a blaze of glory, or would the public have largely forgotten it by now?

Oh, and this is unrelated, but I think this is a good example of the first item I addressed yesterday. People who claim to take the Bible entirely literally (which they really don't, of course, but that's another issue) assume everyone else is just as dogmatic as they are, so evolution MUST be a competing religion. Good thing Dorothy got out of Kansas before this nonsense started. {g}

Amazing strength is a common trait among the semi-divine, but the most famous mythological strong man is, of course, Hercules. And for some reason, he's pretty much always called "Hercules" in our culture, even when the other mythological figures are referred to by their Greek names. Technically speaking, Herakles is the son of Zeus, and Hercules is the son of Jupiter. The figure of Herakles came to Rome by way of the Etruscans, who referred to the hero as "Hercle." The cult of Hercules was popular throughout the Roman world, and Wikipedia suggests that images of the demigod might have inspired the Buddhist Nio statues of East Asia.



I'm sure everyone knows the tales of Hercules, if only from Disney movies or campy Sunday afternoon television, so I won't bother recapping the story of his birth and labors in full. I will, however, mention some of the odder and more interesting aspects of the vast mythology that developed around the son of Zeus.

• In his youth, he was struck by his music teacher Linus for his inattention, and inadvertently killed Linus with his own blanket...um, I mean, lyre.
  
• I've mentioned this before, but how Herakles, in a fit of Hera-inspired madness, killed the children he'd had with his first wife, Megara of Thebes, bears repeating.
  
• On his way to retrieve the cattle of the three-bodied giant Geryon, he engaged in a bit of Paul Bunyan style terraforming, building pillars along the sides of the Strait of Gibraltar. These are still known as the Pillars of Hercules, and I believe I've seen suggestions that a version of Hercules was the main god worshipped in the lost Iberian city of Tartessos. The same journey involved Herakles trying to shoot the Sun with an arrow, the boldness of which act so impressed Helios that the god gave the strong man the disc of the Sun to use as a boat.
  
• He was forced to cross-dress while serving as a domestic servant to Omphale of Lydia. As with his Labors, this was the result of a murder brought on by madness, this time of his friend Iphitus of Oechalia.
  
• According to Diodorus Siculus, he established the first Olympic Games, but most other accounts contradict this.
  
• The man did a fair amount of wrestling, with opponents including Antaeus of Libya and the sons of Proteus. He even wrestled Death himself (known as Thanatos to the Greeks) in order to restore his friend Admetus' wife Alcestis to life. Maybe the beating he took from Herakles is the reason Death stuck to chess after that. {g}
  
• He aided the Olympians in driving off an attack by giants. For some reason, the gods needed a mortal to assist them in repelling the invasion.
  
• He killed a sea monster sent by Poseidon to attack Troy, only to sack the city himself and hold Podarces (later known as Priam) for ransom when Podarces' father Laomedon refused to give Herakles the reward he had originally promised.
  
• The Troy McClure movie The Erotic Adventures of Hercules (by way of The Simpsons, natch) wasn't really as far-fetched as it might seem at first glance, as one story told of Herakles is that he had sex with and impregnated all fifty daughters of King Thespius of Thespiae in one night, with the rulers of Sparta and Macedon tracing their ancestry back to this affair.
  
• One adventure in which he did not prevail was a drinking contest with Dionysus.
  

The semi-divine hero's life was ended by a cloak woven by his last wife Deianeira and laced with hydra venom by a vengeful centaur, but he was granted a place in Olympus and a marriage to Zeus's daughter Hebe in his afterlife.

Here's a fandom meme, which I got from poisonyoulove:

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?
2. Do you think that you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
3. Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
4. Do you participate in this fandom (fan fiction, graphics, discussions)?
5. Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?

I was given The Simpsons, They Might Be Giants, and Kids in the Hall, so let me start:

The Simpsons:
1. Well, it is (or at least was) an excellent show, and I was about the right age, you know? I watched it from the beginning, but didn't become a really dedicated fan until around the fifth and sixth seasons.

2. I'm pretty sure I'll watch it until it finally becomes unprofitable. And I have the DVD sets, so there's a good chance I'll come back to certain episodes even after cancellation. So yeah, I guess I'm staying.

3. I think the show hit its peak in the fifth through seventh seasons. Ones that immediately come to mind as favorites are "Homer the Heretic," "Bart Sells His Soul," and "Much Apu About Nothing."

4. I used to read and post to the alt.tv.simpsons newsgroup back in my college days. Now, my only real contribution is writing reviews of the new episodes on my journal.

5. I'm not sure that's possible. The show has been around long enough and been such a fixture in the past two decades that I can't imagine anyone who has access to a TV not having watched it at least occasionally.


They Might Be Giants:
1. I'd heard some of their songs prior to college and liked them, but it was really during college that I got into them. I lived in a nerd dorm, so there were a lot of other fans around. {g}

2. I'm really not a moving-on kind of guy. I add new interests and sometimes temporarily put old ones on the back burner, but it's rare for me to totally lose interest in anything. So no, I don't expect to move on from TMBG, even if they stop making music.

3. I'd still say my overall favorite song of theirs is "It's Not My Birthday." Other high-ranking ones are "Reprehensible," "Dinner Bell," and "Sleeping in the Flowers."

4. I used to be a pretty frequent poster on the alt.music.tmbg newsgroup and the now-defunct tmbg.org e-mail list.

5. Yes, but annoying frat boys and the like need not apply.


Kids in the Hall:
1. bethje, basically. She was a fan before she knew me, and got me interested as well.

2. Well, I plan to remain at least as long as it takes me to watch the rest of the episodes. {g}

3. I haven't seen all of them yet, so I don't really want to pick right now. I do have to say that "The Dr. Seuss Bible" works for me on several levels, though. {g}

4. No, but I've really only become a fan recently anyway.

5. Yeah, I think so.


And while no one chose this for me, I'm also going to answer these questions for Oz.

1. Return to Oz piqued my interest, but it was my dad giving me copies of the first two books to read that really resulted in my immersing myself in L. Frank Baum's world.

2. While nobody knows what the future will bring, I have to say my interest hasn't particularly flagged in the past twenty years, and I would expect it to remain.

3. The Patchwork Girl of Oz is my overall favorite.

4. Quite a bit, actually. I've written my own stories, participated in both scholarly and light-hearted discussions, and attended conventions.

5. Definitely. More people need to read these books.


If anyone else wants to do this, let me know!

Seek it, usually. I tend to be desperate for attention. Not when I'm at work, though.

Well, it's season finalé time again. I think they've only shortened the length of each new season by two episodes, but it seems like more than that. Maybe that's just a side effect of time moving more quickly as I get older, though. When I see new Simpsons episodes that deal with issues, I can't help thinking of earlier episodes that covered them much better. In this case, the topic of the week is immigration, and it makes me remember how much funnier and more clever "Much Apu About Nothing" was. That said, despite not being too astute in terms of social commentary (I've heard the "immigrants would have to build the border fence" joke so many times that it's pretty much a cliché), this wasn't such a bad episode overall. I liked the Ogdenvillians, and the lead-up to the main plot with the new Krusty Burger sandwich. I might have mentioned this before, but I think the reason I keep watching the show when I know other people have given up on it is the sense of familiarity. It lacks any edge it might have had in the past, but viewers know the characters and have some interest in their further exploits. As such, episodes that mess with what we know about the characters are a far greater sin than ones that are somewhat lacking in the humor department.

Family Guy had its second out-of-continuity episode in a row. You'd think they could have spaced them out better, wouldn't you? It was all right, but the semi-incestuous jokes were a bit uncomfortable. Yeah, I know it wasn't REALLY incest within the context of the story, but it came uncomfortably close. As for American Dad, it was pretty good, but not one of the better recent episodes. Stan's night out with the guys was pretty amusing.

I'm not sure what to think of The Cleveland Show. I like Cleveland as a character on FG, but I'm not sure he can carry his own show. But then, as long as the jokes are good, I'm sure I'll watch it. I think the most likely danger is that it will end up being too much like FG, just without the Griffins.

Finally, happy one-day-belated birthday to kevenn!

The most recent Simpsons episode was pretty lame, honestly. Doing four stories meant they didn't leave much time to develop any particular one. The Queen Elizabeth one seemed like it had some potential, but it was practically over right after starting. The Snow White one had some good jokes, especially with the working animals, but still struck me as lacking. I didn't care much for the Macbeth segment at all, but Maggie's Fountainhead was kind of cute.

Family Guy actually did a better job with the multiple out-of-continuity stories thing, which they do a lot less often. I remember the genie/superpowers/Little Rascals one, and the one about Griffins throughout history, but I think those might have been the only two. All three of those were pretty amusing, even though I've never actually seen The Shawshank Redemption. (I haven't read any Stephen King either, but despite the reference to books at the beginning, the segments were obviously parodies of the film adaptations.) American Dad was pretty good as well, and I appreciate that they maintained the character development, with Stan no longer being totally homophobic.

While on the subject of cartoons, here's a survey-meme-thing that I got from secondlina:
( Life is like a cartoon movie. )

Eh, I didn't think much of last night's Simpsons episode. The premise was actually pretty interesting, but nothing really came of it. The crazy school inspector was kind of funny, but that's pretty much it. Not to mention that I found the timeline kind of confusing, since they seemed to be cutting back and forth to storylines that weren't even taking place at the same time of day, as far as I could tell. It's hardly the first episode to do this, but it struck me as particularly confusing this time. Family Guy wasn't that great either, although I did think the live-action clips were a nice touch. I did enjoy American Dad, and appreciated that it gave more background for Roger, but I can't help feeling sorry for the guy.

All right, that's all for now, and I have to get going soon anyway. In the works for tonight is a post about Kaliko.

Okay, first of all, I'd better reveal the answers to that lyrics quiz.

1. What's the matter with the songs he's singing? Can't you tell that they're pretty lame? "It's Still Billy Joel to Me," by "Weird Al" Yankovic (nova_one, rockinlibrarian, revme)
2. I can understand why you'd want a better man, but why you wanna make him out of me? "Spitting in the Wind," by the dB's. I don't think I would have gotten this one either.
3. The color of infinity inside an empty glass. "Experimental Film," by They Might Be Giants (carvinkeeper12, petie_s, zimbra1006, nova_one, revme)
4. I know that you're in there. I can see you. You're saying you're okay. I don't believe you. "Learn to Live with What You Are," by Ben Folds
5. So I guess I'll give it up. Yeah, I guess I will. What's the use in pushing when it's all uphill? "(Believed You Were) Lucky," by 'Til Tuesday
6. Take off into space from this terrible place, won't be 'round for a year. "Weather Perfectly Clear," by the Fastbacks
7. I'm gonna [title], like a pussycat. "Pounce," by Nellie McKay
8. Never thought I'd fall, but now I hear the call. "I'm Gettin' Sentimental Over You," by TMBG (revme)
9. On the way home from the party, neither of us said a word. "Scotch Grove," by the Mountain Goats
10. One part sad and two parts brave. "To the Stars," by Erin McKeown
11. "Why do cupids and angels continually haunt her dreams like memories of another life?" is printed on her shirt in capitals. Oh, come on, I was sure someone would get this! It's "Trompe le Monde," by the Pixies.
12. Billie, you're a miracle, and God knows I need one. "My Only Friend," by the Magnetic Fields (zimbra1006)
13. Desmond has a barrow in the marketplace. Molly is the singer in a band. "Ob-Li-Di, Ob-La-Da," by the Beatles (carvinkeeper12, burningofroissy, little_octagon, petie_s, zimbra1006, nova_one, rockinlibrarian, vilajunkie, revme)
14. There was a face on a hoarding that someone had drawn on. "Better Off Dead," by Elton John
15. I spring up from the ground. I stretch myself up and look around this whole world. "Spring Succeeds," by the Olivia Tremor Control

As usual, a few really easy ones, and mostly ones even I wouldn't be able to guess. This game never works out as well as I would hope.

Also, happy belated birthday to leolapyre, and here are some cartoon reviews for your reading pleasure.

Simpsons: This one actually had a halfway decent plot, but wasn't particularly funny. Even parts that seemed like they SHOULD have been funny, like the dream sequence, really weren't. Come on, how do you mess up an appearance by the ghost of Oscar Wilde? And Homer's becoming a supertaster was never resolved. Also, was this Lunchlady Doris' first speaking role since Doris Grau died?

Sit Down, Shut Up: No, the second episode wasn't an improvement over the first. And the combination of bad drawings with actual photographic images is pretty bizarre.

Family Guy: With all of the TV and movie clichés that the show has mocked, I don't think they'd done the one with the popular kid dating a loser before. Not a bad episode overall, but it did come across as yet another one where the plot really just fizzled out at the end, possibly due to lack of time. And nothing really came of the Stewie subplot, although his tough-guy behavior was kind of amusing.

American Dad: I liked it, but I have to wonder why they'd choose to show two Stan and Steve bonding episodes in a row.

See, I saw Ben Folds at a casino in Atlantic City last night, and you can FOLD at the poker table. There must be something there, right? Well, never mind. It would have been lame anyway. What wasn't lame was the concert itself. It did take forever to get started, but since we had seats, it wasn't the big deal it might have been otherwise. The opening band was the Hotel Lights, the current project of former Ben Folds Five member Darren Jessee. I honestly can't say I had much of an opinion on them one way or the other. Ben himself was accompanied by a band, and did an interesting set that included a few of the fake versions of the Way to Normal tracks, which were apparently leaked out before the album's release as a joke. I hadn't heard any of them before, but maybe I should seek them out. It was actually a while into the show before he pulled out any songs from his days with the Five, although he did play several in his encore. For "Free Coffee," he placed Altoid tins on top of his piano strings, producing a weird, sort of electronic sound. Ben also told stories about crazy cab drivers, one of which he turned into a brief song. (Whether the song was totally off the cuff or something he'd prepared ahead of time wasn't totally clear, but he certainly made it sound like he was improvising it.)

After the show, bethje and I went out to eat with her cousin Mark and his girlfriend Katie, which was fun. It took us a while to find a place we could eat at that time of night. We tried to find the Bombay Cafe at the Trump Taj Mahal, but were unable to locate it, so instead we went to Breadsticks at Resorts. Oh, and while we were in line for the concert, I noticed someone wearing a shirt with what looked like the Oz symbol on the back, but it actually turned out to be advertising a cult. If I were Ozma, I'd sue. {g}

You might have noticed that, even though the Animation Domination block on Fox (NewsCorp sure loves the word "dominate," don't they?) was new last Sunday, I didn't review them. That's because Beth and I were out with her cousin Craig when they were on (well, we got back in time for American Dad, but not the others), and I didn't get a chance to watch the tape until Thursday. I don't really have too much to say about them even now. The Simpsons episode was pretty bland for the most part, and Bart pretending to be good to impress a girl had been done before. I did like the focus on Milhouse, though, and some of the brief gags. I do have to nitpick the bit near the beginning with Groundskeeper Willy being knocked out by the letters from the school sign, though. When he was knocked out, we saw three N's turn sideways into Z's, but there are only two N's in "Springfield Elementary School." I hope someone got fired for that blunder. :P

I don't have much to say about Family Guy or American Dad. They were passable, and the "Bag of Weed" song in the former was pretty good, but neither was anything all that special. I do feel I should say a bit about Sit Down, Shut Up, though, seeing as how it's new and all. Despite top-name voice talent (I think the creators of the show must have come to the set of Arrested Development and gotten as many people as possible to sign up as cartoon voices), I didn't think it was that funny. Honestly, it seemed to be trying too hard. And is it really reasonable to do so much meta-humor before you've even fully introduced your characters and premise? Oh, well. You can rarely judge a show by its first episode.

And now we're pretty much caught up to the present day. I do still need to provide the answers to last week's lyric quiz, though, don't I?

For the most part, the Simpsons episode last night was pretty good. Moe was both amusing and sympathetic throughout the show. I didn't care much for the ending, though. It seemed sort of like the writers said, "We're almost out of time, and we can't leave Moe dating this girl, so let's just break them up really abruptly." Also, was the subplot with Marge using the surveillance software really necessary? It's not like anything really came of it. By the way, I wonder if the leader of those bully babies was another one of Kearney's kids. I think it pretty obvious that he was supposed to be related to Kearney in some way.

No other new cartoons last night, but I do feel I should mention that I recently finished reading Peter Pan. I believe that Barrie first wrote the story as a play, and the book actually seems rather self-annotated, expanding upon ideas that he couldn't fully get across in dialogue, and making an effort to explain Peter and Captain Hook's thought processes. One thing that I might have heard before, but that I didn't really think much about before, is how Peter is essentially an updated version of the god Pan, represented as a perpetual human child instead of a goat-like deity.

Finally, this ad keeps coming up on my LJ page, and I have to wonder if I'm the only one who thinks this girl looks a bit like Polychrome. It's probably at least partially because the black semicircle at the top (which isn't actually supposed to be part of the picture) reminds me of the skullcap that Neill drew Polychrome as wearing.

I actually thought that tonight's Simpsons episode was pretty good. When I heard it was about Homer and Marge's marriage being declared invalid, I feared the worst. But they managed to actually make it work within the show's continuity, and come up with an interesting plot to boot. I liked Sideshow Bob showing up as a red herring (I suppose this was his shortest speaking role), and the Parson was an amusing character. I have to wonder if he'll ever show up again. Hey, if Comptroller Atkins can become an occasional recurring character, then why not? Also, I found it interesting that Howard's Flowers was the same store Homer visited way back in the first season ("Some Enchanted Evening," to be specific), and I assume Howard was the poorly-animated guy that Homer bought a rose from back then. Even though I think the show is well past its prime, it's the occasional episode like this that makes it still worth watching.

As for Family Guy, the bits with the cast of The Next Generation were great. The main plot wasn't bad either, but it's obvious that the Star Trek cast appearances were the main draw, being all they showed on the commercials. One thing I wonder is when they decided Brian was an atheist. I know it's been mentioned before, and it's in character for him, but I know he seemed to believe in God in at least one previous episode, and possibly others as well.

American Dad was also a good one, with a well-developed main plot, a funny subplot with Steve and Roger, and the successful reappearance of Reginald the Koala. So I guess it was actually a good night all around, as far as cartoons were concerned.

Okay, so, this past weekend wasn't all that eventful, but most of them aren't, so why would this one be any different? On Friday night, bethje and I watched Bubba Ho-Tep, which I enjoyed. Bruce Campbell did a good job playing old Elvis. Later that night, I had a dream that I was in high school (I guess it was high school, anyway), and the bathrooms had these weird machines that automatically dispensed soap and water, but also would sometimes play jokes and emit whipped cream or something. Also, I made some quip about zombies that I can't remember (I'm sure it didn't make any sense; dream jokes generally don't), and it ended up on T-shirts.

On Saturday, we met up with Dorothea and her boyfriend for dinner at the Olive Garden. He paid for us, which was very nice of him. And I got to see Dorothea's pets Isabella (a Pomeranian/Toy Eskimo mix who might well also have some Chihuahua ancestry) and Joey (a big gray cat who likes to spin around in an office chair).

Throughout the weekend, I've been listening to the Decemberists' new album, The Hazards of Love. The album is essentially a rock opera, something that's quite suited to the band. I enjoy it, but it'll probably take some time to fully click with me. The Decemberists have had songs that I liked immediately ("Billy Liar" and "The Chimbley Sweep" both fit into that category), but they seem not to have had quite as many in recent years. They certainly haven't lost any of their creativity or skill, though.

The Simpsons episode tonight wasn't bad, but a lot of the humor did strike me as rather juvenile. Very heavy on the bad puns, but fortunately, I tend to enjoy such things. {g} Family Guy was one of the better recent episodes, especially for the Handiquacks plot. It takes some clever writing to come up with something that bad. The Fred Savage bit was also amusing, although it kind of seemed like the show was ripping itself off. Didn't the show already reveal that Ricky Martin and Jewel were the same person? Oh, well. American Dad was also good; I tend to like the episodes where Steve and Roger work together on something.